A soaring promise that having the courage to act on one’s dreams is all that really matters.
Making a rash but worthy choice, a child frees a neighbor’s caged flock of tropical birds.
When young Sara sees that the strange little wire house she passes on her way to school has been filled with noisy parakeets, she remembers how cardinals, cape canaries, and turtledoves used to gather in her grandpa’s yard every afternoon to chirp and coo—and snatch at the handful of rice he would throw in the air at 4:00 each afternoon. The next day, she opens the cage and accepts the ensuing punishment from her parents…who tell her, worrisomely, that birds not used to being free might not be able to fend for themselves. That night, though, she dreams of flocks of brown and lesser noddies, terns, and other birds flying free in the nature preserve on nearby Cocos Island and is reassured: “All will be well, as long as the world has wings to dream.” Some of the act’s consequences are a bit glossed over, but its profound rewards are clear. Patel sets her tale on her native island of Mauritius (where it was originally published, in French), and for her illustrations Tchoukriel not only depicts settings and the dark-skinned residents, but also the many birds in careful, exact detail. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A soaring promise that having the courage to act on one’s dreams is all that really matters. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66250-093-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Crossing Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
The message is worthy, but this phoned-in follow-up doesn’t add anything significant.
A color-themed vision of what school should be like.
In what amounts to a rehash of The World Needs More Purple People (2020), Bell and Hart address adult as well as young readers to explain what “curious and kind you” can do to make school, or for that matter the universe, a better place. Again culminating in the vague but familiar “JUST. BE. YOU!” the program remains much the same—including asking questions both “universe-sized” (“Could you make a burrito larger than a garbage truck?”) and “smaller, people-sized” (i.e., personal), working hard to learn and make things, offering praise and encouragement, speaking up and out, laughing together, and listening to others. In the illustrations, light-skinned, blond-haired narrator Penny poses amid a busy, open-mouthed, diverse cast that includes a child wearing a hijab and one who uses a wheelchair. Wiseman opts to show fewer grown-ups here, but the children are the same as in the earlier book, and a scene showing two figures blowing chocolate milk out of their noses essentially recycles a visual joke from the previous outing. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
The message is worthy, but this phoned-in follow-up doesn’t add anything significant. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43490-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
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